i just really need you here right now
by Annerb
Summary: Harry misses things, sometimes. That doesn't mean he stops trying. (Harry/Ginny)


A/N: A little ficlet written for a prompt on tumblr while I'm working on my friends-with-benefits fic over on AO3. Some swearing but otherwise very tame.

 **i just really need you here right now**

Harry hates to be nagged. It drives him up the wall when Hermione tries to do it. Always has. He wonders how Ron can put up with it, the way it just seems to roll off his back when Hermione starts in on something. How sometimes he even looks like he finds it _endearing_ or something.

Of course, as much as Harry hates to be nagged, he hates being maneuvered even more. Nothing gets his blood pumping faster or brings to life that stupid part of his brain that likes to yell and do rash things more than the creeping feeling that someone is trying to manipulate him into doing something.

He thinks it's one of the things he's always liked about Ginny. She doesn't nag. She doesn't manipulate. She just lets him do his own thing, and if she thinks he needs to do something or understand something, she plainly states it. Or yells it, if required.

He prefers that really.

All the same, he knows he misses things. A lot of things. Ginny doesn't get huffy about it. She doesn't do passive aggressive, far more likely to go full on aggressive with a bat-bogey to the face. There are times though, where she doesn't even get mad when he fucks something up. Like she knows this is just how he is. But he can tell he's disappointed her somehow.

It's a thousand times worse.

The unbearable feeling of letting her down builds up on his skin over time and, of course, they end up having a spectacular row. About something stupid and unimportant and completely unrelated to what's really going on, but he just doesn't know how to bring up the things he really wants to say.

So they row and yell and Ginny gets very near to throwing something at him. He can't even remember what this argument is about at this point, just that he started it.

"I'm not a fucking mind-reader, Ginny!" he eventually shouts, all of his pent up frustration and annoyance with himself pouring out.

She falls quiet, that dangerous, thoughtful silence that means he's let something horribly telling slip.

Ginny retreats, giving him space to calm down, and he wishes her back immediately.

Later they lie curled up together in the dark and he wants to tell her how terrified he is that he's going to fuck this up, going to drive her away or lose her or just make her fall out of love with him. That the longer they're together, the more he's beginning to suspect there's something broken in him—this inability to understand what she needs, to see things he's supposed to. The inability to know what he himself needs enough to even ask for it.

He doesn't say any of that though. Of course.

They navigate it like they do all things, Ginny giving him that look like she's figured something out. She starts carefully verbalizing all the things she expects of him, taking nothing for granted, like she's taking it at face value that he can't read her mind.

 _I need you to owl me if you're going to be later than seven. Just so I don't have to worry._

 _I need you to come to this stupid thing with me or I think I might hex someone and get fired._

 _I don't need you to come to every one of my games. This one isn't important._

It makes things better for a while. He listens and does his best and feels a little less like he's navigating a minefield.

Only then Ginny starts to expect the same thing from him, and he's utter shite at it, no matter how hard he tries. He thinks about the wet towel she leaves on the floor in the bathroom every day without fail, the way she's someone who is clearly used to being picked up after and how it sometimes drives him batty, but before the words _I need you to pick up your towel and hang it up_ can pass his lips he thinks that he doesn't actually care that much about it if it means he gets to have her here.

But there are other things floating around the edges of his brain. Like waking from a nightmare and wanting her to be awake too, but not wanting to bother her. Like banging around the house after a particularly ugly case but not being able to get the words past his lips that he needs her to help him fix that. To help him figure out how to deal with it better.

He can never manage to bring any of that up.

"What? Because you don't think you deserve to _need_ things?" she explodes in exasperation at him once.

He wonders if maybe he doesn't.

Her expression tells him she knows this, even if he hasn't said it out loud.

She grabs his face, kissing him like somehow she might be able to snog it into his thick skull.

He appreciates the attempt.

Eventually he fucks up and misses something she clearly communicated was important to her, too busy out on some mission or getting lost in work. He at least knows why and how he messed up, not some horrible realization after the fact.

She still doesn't get mad.

He can't explain why that grates, but when he thinks about it, for some reason he remembers the day of Dumbledore's funeral, Ginny's expression as he broke her heart and abandoned her and she absolved him of it completely.

At the time, that had seemed just another sign that Ginny is perfect, that she understands him. The relief that she made it so easy for him.

Only now, looking back, does it start to feel like something else. Like maybe she doesn't think she deserves to need things either.

"I should have been there," he tells her. "I'm sorry."

She shakes her head. "It wasn't that big of a deal."

He doesn't know why she's saying that. It was a big deal. An important event for her. It meant something to her. And he'd missed it. He hadn't been there.

"I know your job is important," she says.

 _Not more important than you_ , he wants to say. Only is it? Is catching bad guys and making everyone safer…isn't that more important? Some days being an Auror doesn't actually feel all that different from being the Chosen One. He's spent his whole life being what the world needs him to be.

He just can't figure out how to be what she needs.

She gives him a fleeting smile, absolving him yet again.

"The last thing he needs is more expectations put on him," he overheard her say to her mother once as the two of them sat in the warm kitchen of the Burrow. Like she refuses to be another burden on him.

He doesn't know how she can't understand that she isn't a burden.

He works it like a puzzle as the months pass, watching her, cataloging her words and actions, letting her fill his entire being. He thinks she would laugh at him, if she knew. _Are you treating me like one of your cases, you nutter?_

He just likes watching her. She's a puzzle he's pretty sure he's never going to solve, but knows he'll never get bored of.

He eventually sucks it up and tells her about the damp towel thing, just to do his part. To _try_. She looks surprised, but says, "That's easy enough," and presses a kiss to his lips. She's careful never to leave the towel lying around again.

He finds he misses it, one day pulling it down on the floor just to carefully hang it again himself.

Maybe he _is_ a nutter. At the very least, he's hopeless. He begins to wonder if he'll never be able to figure this out.

On a usual weekday morning, Ginny comes back sweaty and breathing hard from her morning run just as Harry sits down to breakfast. Her food is waiting on the counter, a warming charm keeping it for her like usual.

"Thanks," she says, pressing a kiss to his temple before running back upstairs for a shower.

He lingers long enough to see her again to say goodbye. She looks surprised to still see him here. "Aren't you going to be late?"

"Yeah," he says, getting to his feet.

He kisses her on his way out, her fingers catching his and squeezing tight.

He spends the morning buried in work like always. There are reports to fill out. New cases. Old cases. Horrible people doing terrible things.

Things to be fixed.

Ginny didn't say a word. She would say, he tells himself. She's good at that at least. But he keeps thinking of her fingers tight around his. How much earlier she's been getting up lately. She's been reading the same book all week, not making any progress at all. None of it is quite right.

He pushes his chair back, Ron stopping mid-sentence as it nearly slams against the wall.

"Mate?" he asks.

"I have to go," Harry announces.

Ron looks at him like he's losing his mind. "Right now?"

They have a case spread out on the table in front of them. Another day, another case. Another mystery. Another thing to be fixed. It's important. They're all important.

 _Not as important as you._

"It can keep, can't it?" Harry asks.

Ron blinks. "Uh. Yeah. I suppose."

"Okay," Harry says, reaching for his cloak. "I'm going."

"Are you coming back?" Ron calls after him.

Harry doesn't answer.

The house is quiet when he lets himself in. He finds her in the sitting room, tucked up on the sofa with that same book she isn't reading. Her attention is out the window.

It just doesn't feel right.

"Ginny."

She turns, book falling to her chest. "Harry. Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"I left," he says, pulling off his cloak and dropping it carelessly over the back of a chair.

She frowns at him. "What?"

He's beginning to feel a bit silly, but pushes it away. _You aren't wrong_. "I just thought maybe…you might need me here," he says, lowering himself down on the sofa next to her.

He sees her pull back, chin lifting. "I'm fine."

She is fine. There's no big crisis, there's nothing wrong needing to be fixed, really. He thinks she would have said if there was. But maybe they aren't always things that need to be fixed.

"We don't always have to have a reason to...need each other, do we?" he stumbles out, this thought that has been circling around in his brain, getting slowly clearer.

She meets his eyes, and he sees it there, what she hadn't let herself ask of him. Be that weak. Because maybe this is something they both struggle with.

He lifts his arm, and she only hesitates a moment before sliding up against him with a sigh. Like giving up a fight she's tired of sustaining.

The problem, he realizes as he holds her close, is that they both know the dangers of needing. How quickly that can be turned against you. Harry learned long ago the futility of needing what will never come. But Ginny… Ginny knows how quickly need can turn into a trap.

"How did you know?" she asks, voice wavering slightly.

"I just…had a feeling," he admits.

She turns her face into his chest. "Impressive. You're getting pretty good at this."

"No," he says. "Not yet."

But he won't ever stop trying.


End file.
